DUSHANBE, April 11, Asia-Plus -- An award ceremony for the winner of the competition on a concept of improvement of Dushanbe and planting it with trees was held at the Dushanbe agency for environmental protection on April 11.  

            The agency head Bahrom Mahmadaliyev that three projects worked out by the Institute of Botanic, the Dushanbe Agency for Environmental Protection and the Institute of Physiology of Plants had been submitted for consideration to the organizing committee.  According to him, no one of these projects has met requirements of the contest and they have applied to the mayor for extending the competition for one month in order that other institutions and organizations could also participate in it.   

            The goal of the competition is to promote further improvement of the Tajik capital city.  The concept aims to project the single long-term strategy on improvement of the city and planting it with trees, Mahmadaliyev said.    

            “The winner will receive 15,000 somonis in prize money,” the head of the Dushanbe agency for environmental protection said, noting that the concept is part of a special ecological program that was projected by the government in cooperation with the Civic Initiatives Foundation, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Sweden’s Sweco International AB, Republican Ecology Center and the NGO For Earth in 2006.